Bug Encyclopedia
Search and identify bugs & insects — beetles, butterflies, moths, ants, bees, spiders and more — with size, habitat, danger, behavior, and how to tell them apart.
Angle Shades Moth
A common night-flying moth whose forewings fold into a crumpled, tent-like shape that mimics a withered or damaged leaf, marked with bold olive-green and pinkish-brown zigzag bands.
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Banded Woolly Bear Moth
Best known as the black-and-rust-banded fuzzy caterpillar that famously curls into a ball when disturbed, this species matures into a plain golden-orange to tan tiger moth.
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Ailanthus Silkmoth (Cynthia Moth)
A very large silkmoth with broad, tan-brown wings crossed by white, crescent-moon-shaped bands, closely associated with the fast-spreading tree-of-heaven that both feeds its larvae and carried the species around the world.
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Six-spot Burnet Moth
A day-flying moth with glossy black-green forewings marked by six bold red spots and vivid crimson hindwings, a striking warning-colored insect often mistaken for a butterfly as it visits summer wildflowers.
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Isabella Tiger Moth (Woolly Bear)
Famous chiefly in its larval stage as the banded woolly bear caterpillar, this tiger moth's fuzzy black-and-rust-colored caterpillar is a familiar autumn sight, while the adult is a soft, tawny-orange moth with a stout, furry body.
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Tobacco Hornworm Moth (Carolina Sphinx)
A large, streamlined gray-brown sphinx moth with six pairs of orange spots along its abdomen, best known as the adult stage of the tobacco hornworm caterpillar that feeds on tomato and tobacco plants.
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Regal Moth (Hickory Horned Devil)
One of the largest moths in North America, with orange-red and gray-veined wings on the adult, best known for its enormous, formidable-looking caterpillar, the hickory horned devil, a blue-green giant bristling with long orange spines.
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Tomato Hornworm Moth (Five-spotted Hawkmoth)
A large, robust grey-brown sphinx moth named for the five pairs of yellow-orange spots along its abdomen, best known as the adult form of the large green tomato hornworm caterpillar familiar to home gardeners.
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Marbled White
A striking checkerboard butterfly with bold black-and-white wing patterning, despite its name it belongs to the brown butterfly family rather than the whites.
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Elephant Hawk-Moth
A strikingly colored olive-green and bright pink hawk moth named for its caterpillar's trunk-like tapered front end and large false eyespots.
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Question Mark Caterpillar
A spiny, variably colored caterpillar named for the silver question-mark-shaped mark on the underside of the adult butterfly's wings.
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Hickory Horned Devil
An enormous, blue-green caterpillar armed with long, curved orange-red horns tipped in black, giving it a fearsome dragon-like appearance despite being completely harmless.
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Silkworm
Plump, pale, and utterly dependent on humans, the silkworm is the domesticated caterpillar behind thousands of years of silk production, spinning a single continuous thread of silk to form its cocoon.
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Sod Webworm
A dull, grayish-green caterpillar that hides in silk-lined burrows by day and emerges at night to chew grass blades down to the thatch.
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Cabbage Looper
A pale green caterpillar with thin white stripes that arches its back into a loop as it inches along cabbage and other garden leaves.
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Whitefly
A tiny, moth-like white insect that clusters on the undersides of leaves and bursts into a snowy cloud when the plant is disturbed. Despite the name, it is not a true fly but a sap-feeding relative of aphids and scale insects.
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Tobacco Hornworm
A large, chunky green caterpillar with diagonal white stripes and a curved red-orange horn at its tail end, often found stripping tomato and tobacco plants.
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Bagworm
A caterpillar that constructs and lives inside a spindle-shaped case of silk and plant debris, dragging its portable shelter along as it feeds on tree foliage.
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Fall Armyworm
A brownish-green caterpillar marked with a pale inverted "Y" on its head, notorious for rapid, large-scale outbreaks that devastate corn and other grass crops across the globe.
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Ten-lined June Beetle
A large, brown scarab beetle marked with bold white racing stripes down its wing covers, known for its loud buzzing flight and hissing defensive squeak.
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Yellow Fever Mosquito
A dark mosquito marked with a lyre-shaped pattern of white scales on its thorax, closely tied to human dwellings and the water-filled containers people leave standing around them.
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Asian Tiger Mosquito
A small, dark mosquito boldly marked with silvery-white stripes, including one distinctive stripe running straight down the center of its back, that bites readily in broad daylight.
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Banded Hairstreak
A gray-brown, tailed hairstreak marked by a postmedian band of white-edged dark spots on the hindwing underside and a small orange-capped blue spot near the tail, closely tied to oak and hickory woodlands.
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Tomato Hornworm
A large, thick green caterpillar with diagonal white stripes and a distinctive curved horn at its tail end, often found stripping leaves from tomato plants in gardens.
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